The recent emergence of four wild boar pigs in Suffolk has prompted the National Pig Association (NPA) to urge farmers to report all future sightings to the “feral wild boar in England” website.
NPA added that the Suffolk sighting was a reminder that “as an industry we have an imperfect understanding of the distribution of breeding populations of feral pigs in Britain”.
In addition to logging information on recent sightings, the website in question also features a detailed account of where the feral wild boar came from and what impact the species has on its surroundings.
This includes a reminder of its interaction with domestic pigs, not least as a “potential carrier of diseases such as bovine tuberculosis, swine fever and foot and mouth”.
It’s also stated that with a wild boar population of at least 800, as assessed at the time of writing, numbers in England are “likely to continue to grow very quickly”.
“This magnitude of population growth mimics the experience of European countries, even where there is a tradition of hunting as the accepted method of control,” it is stated on the website.